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Sunday, July 16, 2017

GUEST POST: SEPHARDIM REJECT REFORM

SEPHARDIC
JEWS REJECT REFORM JUDAISM

a GUEST POST by Mr. Cohen – quotes listed in time order

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********** QUOTE 1 OF 10: **********

Reform — with rebuke for existing forms inherent in the very word — was by
its nature incompatible with traditional Sephardic orthodoxy.Reform, an attempt to bring Judaism “up to
date,” to make Judaism appear to be at home with existing American religious
patterns, was attacked by traditionalists as a subversive attempt to
“Christianize” Judaism.

Under Reform, women would come down from their secluded balconies in
synagogues, and worship side by side with their husbands.Men would take off their tall silk hats.

[Reform] synagogues would look more like
churches. English would replace Hebrew.

“Enlightenment
brought major changes to the Sephardic community too, but Reform never
presented a serious challenge to the established Orthodox rabbinate, and the
vast majority of [Sephardic] lay people, even those who grew lax in their Halachic
observance, remained attached to the traditional [Orthodox] rituals in the
synagogue and the home.”

MICROBIOGRAPHY: David Landau was News Editor of HaAretz,
Managing Editor of The Jerusalem Postand Israel Bureau Chief for the
Jewish Telegraphic agency.

____________________________________________________________

********** QUOTE 7 OF 10: **********

“The Reform leaders did not rest on their laurels,
and continued
agitating until they had obtained a
foothold in virtually every single kehillah
in New York.

Out of 100 shuls that had been established in the early 1800s,
only a pitiful ten percent, ten shuls in all, remained Frum
[Orthodox].

Three or four of the ten [synagogues that remained Orthodox in New York] were Sephardic shuls,
and the rest were
Ashkenazi shuls that had heroically
managed to withstand the pressure of
the Reform movement.”

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Nothing new here. The reform movement started in Germany and took over western Europe and overook the U.S., where the Jews felt free enough to assimilate and throw off the yoke of Heaven. The Sephardim, B'H, didn't even know of this madness until much later and rejected it. The audacity of changing H's Holy Torah was/is unthinkable.

Many of the Sephardim are not even religious (usually traditional) but most would never contemplate this blasphemy. Praying that will always be and mostly, that the reform movement will undo themselves and their members will do teshuvah.